Everything about this pattern, before you pay for it
Most pattern listings tell you after. Here is the whole spec.
| What it is | Two written crochet patterns, each a PDF: the coaster, and a little flower pot to stand it in. The files are titled The Forget-Me-Not Coaster and The Little Flower Pot. |
| What you make | A round openwork coaster: a white lace centre, a green rim of twenty-four little pointed leaves, and twelve tiny forget-me-nots sitting on every other point. Roll it up and stand it in the flower pot, and it is a small bouquet. |
| Finished size | About 14 cm (5½ in) across the flowers. The white centre, where the cup sits, is about 10 cm (4 in), and each flower about 3 cm (1¼ in). The pot is about 6.5 cm (2½ in) across and 5.5 cm (2¼ in) tall. |
| How long it takes | About 2½ hours for the coaster — seven rounds and twelve small flowers. About 1 more for the pot. |
| Hook | 2.0 mm or 2.5 mm for the coaster; its pattern gives both. The sizes above are worked on 2.5 mm. On 2.0 mm it comes out about a fifth smaller, nearer 11 cm, and a little denser. 3.0 mm for the pot. |
| Yarn | 4-ply cotton, about a US sport weight; milk cotton is what the coaster is worked in. Five colours in small amounts: white for the centre, green for the edging, three colours for the flowers, and a little yellow for the knot in the middle of each one. The pot is one colour of 5-ply milk cotton, about a US DK weight; a strong colour shows its ribs best. |
| Yarn needed | About 10 g (25 yd) of white, 8 g (20 yd) of green, 5 g (12 yd) of each of the three flower colours, and a few yards of yellow — about 35 g (90 yd) in all. One 50 g ball of white and one of green is plenty, and the flowers are a scrap-yarn project. The pot takes about 18 g (40 yd). |
| Skill level | The coaster is confident beginner, which is what its pattern says: joined rounds, working into chain spaces, and a small chain point. The pot is advanced beginner, as its pattern says: post-stitch ribbing, invisible decreases and a reverse single crochet rim. |
| Techniques used | Magic ring · joined rounds, closing each one where it began · chain, slip stitch, single crochet, half double crochet, double crochet and treble crochet · working into a chain space rather than into a stitch · working a whole round into a magic ring · a small chain point closed with a slip stitch into the back bump · skipping the stitches below so a chain space stays the only place you work · working two groups into two different places on the same round · a small knot made with a tapestry needle · changing colour for a new part · weaving in ends · gluing small pieces onto finished work. The pot adds: working into the back loops only · front and back post double crochet · the single crochet increase · the invisible decrease · reverse single crochet · an invisible finish |
| No increases or decreases in the coaster | There is not one of either in the whole coaster. Every change in the count comes from which space the hook goes into. If “inc” and “dec2tog” are the two things you are shakiest on, the coaster has neither. The pot has both: single crochet increases in its base, and invisible decreases where it draws in at the top. |
| Worked in | Both in joined rounds. The coaster’s centre starts each round with ch 3 and its edging with ch 1, and neither ever counts as a stitch: the round’s first real stitch is its first stitch. |
| The centre | Five rounds. From round 2, almost every stitch goes into a space rather than into a stitch — the double crochets underneath are skipped entirely and the chain lies across the base of the new group. Rounds 1 to 3 keep twelve groups and make each one longer; round 4 doubles them to twenty-four; round 5 repeats them. |
| Round 4, on its own | It is the only round in the pattern that works into two different places — the middle stitch of each group of three below, and the chain space beside it, alternating all the way round. That alternation is the doubling from twelve groups to twenty-four, and it has its own checkpoint. |
| The edging | Two rounds. Round 6 throws a ring of twenty-four chain-5 loops, one springing from every space of the centre. Round 7 stands a small point inside each loop, with a single crochet on each side of it to anchor it. |
| The flowers | Twelve — three colours, four of each, or any mix you like. Each one is a single round of five petals worked into a magic ring: a loop of chains with two treble crochets standing in the middle of it. The centre of each flower is a small knot of yellow, wound three times round a tapestry needle and drawn through. |
| Fixing them on | Glued, not sewn. A dot of craft glue on a leaf point, a flower pressed onto it, then skip a point and glue the next — twelve flowers around twenty-four points. The pattern does not name a brand of glue and does not say how it stands up to a wet glass or a wash. |
| The flower pot | A flat round base of five rounds, turned up with one round in the back loops, three rounds of front and back post ribbing, then drawn in and finished with a corded rim — one piece, one colour. Roll the coaster up and stand it in the pot, and the forget-me-nots fill the top. |
| Sewing | None, in either pattern. The edging is worked straight onto the centre, the flowers are glued on, and the pot is one piece. The needle is used for the yellow knot in each flower and for weaving in ends. |
| Count checkpoints | Seven: 24 at the end of the centre’s round 1, counting the chains; twelve groups of 3 at the end of round 3; 72 in twenty-four groups at the end of round 4, which is the one that doubles; 72 again at the end of round 5; 24 chain loops at the end of edging round 6; 24 points at the end of round 7; and five petals on a flower. Three in the pot: 16 at the end of round 2, 40 at the end of round 5, and 32 at the end of round 10. |
| Also needed | Stitch markers, a blunt yarn needle, craft glue and scissors. The pot needs the same, without the glue. |
| Pages | 19 for the coaster, 15 for the pot |
| Printing | The instructions are real text, not pictures of text — so you can search them, copy them, enlarge them, or have them read aloud. |
| Terminology | US crochet terms, in both. Worth checking against any other forget-me-not pattern you have seen: several of the free ones are written in UK terms, where “treble crochet” means what this one calls a double crochet. |
| Language | English |
| Left-handed | Written for you too. Work it exactly as written and your coaster comes out a mirror image of the photos. Nothing else changes: the twenty-four points are identical and the flowers are placed by counting points, so they come out the same either way. In the pot, the reverse single crochet rim travels from right to left for you. |
| Delivery | Both download links on the confirmation page and in your email, straight away. |
Real crochet, captured while it was being made
You have learned to zoom in on a listing photo looking for stitches that don’t join up. You should — the shops selling patterns behind pictures that were never crocheted are real, and there are a lot of them.
So here is the unglamorous version: the white centre at the end of its fifth round, with the hook resting in its last loop; green chain loops going round its edge, the hook still in the work; and yellow yarn wound round a needle in the middle of a flower, for the knot at its centre. Every one of these was captured while the piece was actually being made.
The ring of loops is the one to look at. Before round 7 turns them into points, the rim is nothing but twenty-four loose loops of chain standing off the edge of the centre — and that is the whole of the leaf edging, one round before it looks like anything.
Nothing on this page is an AI-generated coaster.
Counted twice
My grandmother taught me on her porch, and she said the same thing every time I tangled the yarn: slow down, count twice, rip it out if it’s wrong — there’s no shame in starting over.
So every pattern in this shop gets counted twice. Once when it’s written. Then again, before it goes on sale: every round is re-added, stitch by stitch, and checked against the round before it.
That’s the whole thing. It’s not clever. It is just the step almost nobody takes, because until a pattern is written down properly you can’t take it — and because nobody was ever asked to show their working.
I’m asking to show mine.
The worst thing a pattern does is not be difficult. It is to be wrong early, so that you find out rounds later and spend the next twenty minutes wondering whether it was you.
On this coaster, that place is round 4, and it is round 4 because of rounds 2, 3 and 5. Those three all go into the chain spaces and nowhere else, so by the time your hand reaches round 4 it has learned a rhythm — and round 4 is the one round that also uses the middle stitch of the three below. Work it the way the others went and you finish with twelve groups where the pattern wants twenty-four, which is thirty-six short. Everything after it comes off that number: twenty-four loops, twenty-four points, twelve flowers. So round 4 gets its own checkpoint, and the checkpoint names that exact mistake rather than leaving you to find it.
Counted twice means you can tell. No more counting the same round for the third time, writing it out on paper to make it add up, and still not knowing whether it’s you or the pattern. The count in the pattern is right. If yours doesn’t match it, the slip is in the round you just made — undo that one round and carry on.
You probably have one project in a bag somewhere, stopped at a round you can still name. Often it stopped on a count that wouldn’t come out. Every count in this one comes out, which leaves you the part you came for: finishing it, and rolling it into a small bouquet for someone.
Here is a real page of it
A pattern that was never crocheted can show you a photograph. It cannot show you a page.
That box is the one place this coaster is easiest to get wrong. Round 4 is the round that turns twelve groups into twenty-four, and it does it by working into two different places, alternately, all the way round. So the box gives you the number you should have, and then tells you what being exactly thirty-six short means and which placement you missed. This is page 13 of the coaster’s 19, and it is the same page you will be reading with a hook in your hand.
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